Dickey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. After serving as a pilot in
the Second World War, he attended Vanderbilt University. Having earned an MA in 1950,
Dickey returned to military duty in the Korean War, serving with the US Air Force. Upon
return to civilian life Dickey taught at Rice University in Texas and then at the
University of Florida. From 1955 to 1961, he worked for advertising agencies in New York
and Atlanta. After the publication of his first book, Into the Stone (Middletown,
Conn., 1962), he left advertising and began teaching at various colleges and universities.
He became poet-in-residence and Carolina Professor of English at the University of South
Carolina.

Dickey's third volume, Buckdancer'sChoice (Middletown, 1965), won the
prestigious National Book Award in Poetry. From 1966 to 1968 he served as poetry
consultant to the Library of Congress. In 1977 Dickey read his poem 'The Strength of
Fields' at President Carter's inauguration. The Hollywood film of his novel Deliverance
(Boston, 1970) brought Dickey fame not normally enjoyed by poets.

Dickey's poems are a mixture of lyricism and narrative. In some volumes the lyricism
dominates, while in others the narrative is the focus. The early books, influenced
obviously though not slavishly by Theodore Roethke and perhaps Hopkins, are infused with a
sense of private anxiety and guilt. Both emotions are called forth most deeply by the
memories of a brother who died before Dickey was born ('In the Tree House at Night') and
his war experiences ('Drinking From a Helmet'). These early poems generally employ rhyme
and metre.

With Buckdancer's Choice, Dickey left traditional formalism behind, developing
what he called a 'split-line' technique to vary the rhythm and look of the poem. Some
critics argue that by doing so Dickey freed his true poetic voice. Others lament that the
lack of formal device led to rhetorical, emotional, and intellectual excess. The truth
probably lies somewhere between these two assessments, and it will be left to the reader
to decide which phase of Dickey's career is most attractive.

Dickey's most comprehensive volume is The Whole Motion (Hanover, NH, and London,
1992). His early poems are collected in The Early Motion (Middletown, 1981). Recent
individual volumes include The Eagle's Mile (Hanover and London, 1990) and Falling,
May Day Sermon, and Other Poems (Hanover and London, 1982). Dickey has also published
collections of autobiographical essays, Self Interviews (Garden City, NY, 1970;
repr. New York, 1984) and Sorties (Garden City, 197 1; repr. New York, 1984).